Assembling a DVD drawing from several video files?

[iB.E.]

Thx to help I rec'd on this forum, I finally succeeded in burning a DVD of from a VHS home movie so that my standalone Sony DVD player will play it. Looking long-term, I am now interested in compiling a "best of" DVD with the same compatibility and decent video quality (given the VHS source) at the one I just burned. This "best of" DVD would draw segments of other home-movie video files and assemble them in one DVD-compatible file.

I have Vegas 4, Nero 5.5.x and am in the 30-day trial period of TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc Author.

1. What is a relatively easy and reliable way to assemble this compilation? I glanced at the Vegas docs, and it looks like segments of a video file can be copy-pasted, but the step-by-step mechanics of this is unclear to me. Suggestions for specifically how to use Vegas to do this, is there a FAQ somewhere that addresses specific steps in Vegas? Or, should I pursue other options?

2. I assume that I should do the editing/assembling using the avi files that were captured form VHS via a Canopus ADVC-100 rather than the mpeg2 files in order to avoid degrading the quality any more than necessary. Am I on the right track?

Thx much.

[Craig Tucker]

I read the title of your post and thought, what the hell is a DVD drawing ?

I would suggest you just insert your mpeg2 videos in to your authoring program (tmpgenc dvd author) and create a simple menu. There is no need to use an editing program to join all the seperate videos unless you want to add special effects or transitions.

If you do decide you want to do some editing then you are correct in assuming that this should be done with the avi files rather than the mpeg files.

[iB.E.]

Naw, Craig, I need to take several small segments from several video files, which I assume would best be AVI files rather than mpeg2s.

[Craig Tucker]

Yes, cut up your avi files using whatever editing package you like (virtualdub is good for this) then convert to mpeg2, then author your mpeg2 files for DVD.

[iB.E.]

Craig, Got the "best of" compilation going by opening two seesions of Vegas and copying-pasting between the 2. Was a breeze once I got it going. Thx for the guidance.